Mario Roncoroni | Filibus (Filibus: The Mysterious Air Pirate) / 1915

exploring identity

by Douglas Messerli

 

Giovanni Bertinetti (screenplay), Mario Roncoroni (director) Filibus (Filibus: The Mysterious Air Pirate) / 1915   

 

Milestone films recently restored the 1915 Italian crime thriller Filibus: The Mysterious Air Pirate.

And as their publicists reiterated the advertisement from the April edition of the Italian film magazine La Vita Cinematogafica of that same year, “No other crime thriller compares to Filibus!” It’s still true today.

      Involving a sophisticated male detective Kutt-Hendy (Giovanni Spano); his more-than-best friend, Leo Sandy (Filippo Vallino) who just happens to be an antiques collector who has recently purchased an ancient Egyptian cat statue with real diamonds for it eyes, a man who wants to marry Kutt-Hendy’s sister Leonora (Cristina Ruspoli) perhaps just to remain close to his dear friend; and would-be detective Baroness Troixmond (Valeria Creti), we quickly discover the entire cast would love to uncover the identity of the renowned jewel thief Filibus.

      This remarkable silent film is not only about the art of detection, but the seeming loss of or confusion of identity, or, in the case of Filibus, the constant reinvention of the self.

      One of the amazing talents of the unidentifiable Filibus, who as Filibus always wears a mask, is that he or she is also able to force others into a crisis wherein they are not even quite sure of who they themselves are. From the very beginning of the film, as Baroness Troixmond joins the others in the search for the air pirate—who operates marvelously from a high flying dirigible—she insists that not only will she uncover the identity of Filibus but prove that he is none other than detective Kutt-Hendy himself, a proposition that is utterly preposterous to all those who know of Kutt-Hendy’s societal and sleuthing credentials. 

      But we, who know that the Baroness is Filibus, or perhaps we should say, is also Filibus, are immediately fascinated in discovering how she will possibly succeed in this seemingly absurd task. 

     Before Kurt-Hendy can even finish his morning tea, Filibus manages to steal one the most important ways in which we each can identify our existence as separate beings, our finger prints, taking an imprint off of the Detective’s hand after drugging his drink.

     With that in “hand” so to speak, she metamorphoses once again, this time switching genders to become Count de la Brive, who—after Filibus has arranged to have Leonora kidnapped on her daily horse ride—manages to rescue her, becoming not only a dear friend of the young lady but gaining entry through her into the Kutt-Hendy villa and access to his friends, including Leo Sandy.

      Unlike almost all the other films of the second decade of film history involving cross-dressing, Filibus does not simply pretend to be a man, but quite literally becomes one in behavior as the Count successfully courts Leonora, she far preferring him to Sandy, whose romantic inclinations she has previously dismissed.

      As now almost a member of the family, the Count is someone with whom Kutt-Hendy feels he can consult and, as a friend of the detective, is a man Sandy feels comfortable enough to invite to the unveiling of his new Egyptian treasure.

      At that event, moreover, the Count manages to cut a circle in the protective glass of the diamond-eyed cat, slip the cutters into Kutt-Hendy’s pocket, and place the detective’s own handprints upon the tool, while inside leaving the message that by nightfall the diamonds will be missing.

       Kutt-Hendy is so stunned by the brazen attempts at robbery that he demands all present be searched—whereupon he discovers that he himself holds the glass cutting tool—and fingerprinted, only to discover later, when he applies chemicals to the prints found on the glass, that they are his own, as well those on the glove of the man who abducted his sister! As he admits to the doctor he consults, he fears he is losing his mind. Although the doctor does suggest that nightwalkers sometimes forget all they do during their sleepy maneuvers, he assures the detective that he is not such a man, presumably simply asserting his patriarchal authority.

     To trick Filibus or whoever is behind the attempted robbery, Kutt-Hendy and his friend Sandy remove the diamonds from the cat’s eyes, replacing them with glass stones, but also placing a miniature camera within the eye socket in order to get a picture of the robber. They hide the real diamonds in a nearby container which can be opened only through a hidden trick-lock.

     In order to have open access to his mansion, Filibus kidnaps Sandy and spirits him away to the sky pirate’s aerial headquarters

     Meanwhile, Filibus revisits the cat and, after recognizing that the stones are counterfeits, as well as accidently tripping the lock to the box, discovers the real diamonds and brilliantly discerns the existence of the hidden camera.

     Drugging Kutt-Hendy, she has her men drag over the cat and, pulling away the false stone, allows the camera to snap a photograph of the sleeping “hero.” Hurrying back to his own mansion, finally, she places one of the real diamonds in an obvious location on Kutt-Hendy’s desk, presumably keeping the other as her reward.

 

     The double evidence of the stone itself and the camera picture cannot but convince everyone of the detective’s guilt, even he attempting imagine how he accomplished such tasks in his wildest nightmares. Surely now even Kutt-Hedy’s sister must wonder whether or not she truly knows her brother. And even the authorities who known him for years, have no other recourse but to find him guilty. In short, Kutt-Hendy has been revealed to be someone other than himself—not a detective but a thief!

      Fortunately, given director Mario Roncoroni’s operatic plot, Sandy, still flying through all this overhead as the prisoner of Filibus, steals a parachute and leaps to safety. Swimming home, exhausted and confused by events, he dries off, the next morning reading the paper only to discover that his friend is about to be sentenced for having been behind the robbery.

       He races to the magistrate and explaining his own abduction temporarily frees the detective, but only if they can find the real criminal and prove Kutt-Hendy’s innocence. By the end of Part Four of this adventure, Kutt-Hendy and Sandy exit the courthouse arm and arm as they reassert their love for one another. It may represent only male comradery, but the detective surely knows that he has his friend to thank for saving his life, and Sandy knows that only his friend can find the true criminal who has stolen his peace of mind and, without him knowing it, the love of Leonora.

  

    Surely these two men have grown closer at this moment than ever before. And even if there is utterly no evidence of sexual interest between them, the look in their eyes is one of life-long devotion.

      To lure Filibus out into the open, Leonora, the detective, and Sandy create a plot in which they announce the fact that Kutt-Hendy has been released and has returned to his villa.

        The only things Filibus cannot resist, evidently, are jewels and the possibility of once more getting the better of the men who pose themselves as experts. She takes up the task of incriminating her opponent once again with lust.

       This time she plots to sedate Kutt-Hendy, rob the international bank, and incriminate him in order to prove his has committed the act. Kutt-Hendy takes his tea this morning with cotton plugs stuffed into his nose so the perfume of the sedative will not affect him.

       Filibus, in mask, enters the Kutt-Hendy villa, being sure to cut his telephone line years ahead of any other such intruder until the 1940s when it became standard procedure. She then tosses a few droplets of the sedative his way and he pretends to doze off, but grabs her as she approaches to check, pulling out a gun and stripping the mask away from her face to reveal—why of course it all makes sense now, Count de la Brive!

       Attempting to phone the police, he discovers his line to be dead, forcing him to tie up the count with pieces of rope his has already prepared for just such a contingency. Closing the windows and locking the doors behind him, the detective leaves his villa to get help, he and Sandy rushing off the report that he has captured the villain.

 

       Meanwhile, despite the rope, the Count / Filibus manages to jump near enough to the window and open the covers in order to signal to her dirigible crew, one member of whom slides down a rope grabs her up and takes her back to the heavens and escape.

        When the authorities arrive, they find the room empty. But at least they now know who the thief truly is, Count de la Brive. It is time for poor Leonora to wonder who she might be, having been so taken in by the Count who was a scoundrel even while he made love. Imagine what she might think of herself if she actually knew the Count’s gender? As it is, she finally submits to her second-best choice, Leo Sandy, who, as I mention above, her brother was truly happy to invite into his family.

     Filibus, not truly having been defeated, admits defeat but vows that he or she will find vengeance in the near future. The unknown Filibus still has no one identity at movie’s end, and stands as a woman as an obvious feminist hero, a goal which Futurist writer Giovanni Bertinetti claimed was his attempt to free Italian women. He wrote numerous books of science fiction and an important Futurist manifesto: “The Cinema: School of the Will and of Energy.” Interestingly, Bertinetti also wrote stories for young people, including a version of Pinocchio, and, under the pseudonym of Donna Clara, books about home decoration and beauty for women, making Joe sound, at least to me, similar to his hero a woman in disguise or a man who must have been gay to know so very much, for a macho science fiction writer, about decorating and beauty products.

      Accordingly, I’d argue Filibus is more than a woman who is able to hold sway over an entire minion of males, who can outwit any man, and who can clearly determine her own destiny, but is also a being of transgender dimensions, a figure constantly shedding his or her identities to explore who or what she or he might prefer to be. This film is far more, in short, that an admirable representation of yet another cross-dressing woman with feminist ideals, but is a coded declaration of sexual revolution.

 

Los Angeles, April 22, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2022).